Weebly

The Challenge

Weebly helps millions of people transform their ideas into thriving businesses online. They came to us in the midst of web redesign, searching for help in defining their brand voice. It was our job to take who Weebly is and how it presents visually and weave brand communications into the experience. Visually, Weebly communicates friendliness, with a lowercase, rounded logotype, bright and energetic color palette, and photos of smiling people. Verbally, Weebly is fun, creative, and witty. Their brand was maturing, adding dimension to a company already known for ease of use in the DIY web-builder space. The communications component needed to complement and enhance the spirit of the brand and visuals.

Their brand was maturing, adding dimension to a company already known for ease of use in the DIY web-builder space. The communications component needed to complement and enhance the spirit of the brand and visuals.

Our Approach

Focus Lab crafted for Weebly a verbal identity that expresses the brand’s essence (heart, commitment, and support for success), speaks to the audience (relating to them, infusing energy, enthusiasm, and caring, then focusing on what it all means for them), and stands out from competitors (by emotionally connecting and conveying partnership). We presented the verbal identity in a communications style guide that provides technical guidelines to help Weebly writers honor the identity in all communications.

The team at Focus Lab were incredible to work with! They partnered with us to develop our brand voice and communications strategy that we have applied to a beautiful new homepage. Great energy, highly collaborative, and awesome output.

Emick, Design Manager, Weebly

Verbal Identity

Brand voice and tone are the crux of verbal identity. Voice defines the personality behind who is speaking and is unchanging; tone meanwhile dictates how things are being said and is affected by subject matter and state of mind of the audience. After a couple weeks of brand strategy, we defined for Weebly a bold, human, and approachable brand voice. Weebly’s general tone was defined as casual, confident, enthusiastic, and welcoming.

Content Strategy and Copy Writing

Defining verbal identity is one thing. Another is to build out technical writing recommendations that honor the verbal identity. Finally, where the rubber meets the road, comes practical application. We worked alongside the Weebly web and marketing teams to copy edit for their homepage in three rounds. Our edits and real-time collaboration helped them better interpret the verbal identity and improved upon the copy before the site went live.